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by taylor_tut



Category: Original Work
Genre: Demon Hunters, F/F, Gen, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-22
Updated: 2018-06-22
Packaged: 2019-05-26 17:14:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15005555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taylor_tut/pseuds/taylor_tut
Summary: I don't usually post my original content on here, but I figured hey, why not? Part of a larger work called Silence Ticking Clocks. Though she's supposed to be dead, Althea Berkowitz sells her own memories to a demon in exchange for more time. She, along with her younger sister Kim and Kim's girlfriend Rickie, search for the demon that dragged her youngest sister Annie to hell in hopes of bringing her back. In this story (a request from tumblr) Althea gets stabbed during an altercation with a demon.





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**Author's Note:**

> I don't normally post original fiction here... but maybe someone might like it?

 

Althea’s head was pounding from being awake from two days researching. She’d finally found the bridge on which they could actually summon this demon and be done with it, but even just that had exhausted her, and they hadn’t even gotten to the hard part.

It was cold on the bridge. Through insulated leggings and a thick jacket, she could still feel the wind biting at her skin. Though all three girls felt the chill in the air, Kim was the one who finally broke the silence to complain about it.

“It’s freaking freezing out here,” she muttered, rubbing her hands over her arms vigorously. “Couldn’t we have done this literally any other night?”

* * *

 

As if on cue, a rustling noise came from behind them. A car, Althea realized, pulling up next to the abandoned bridge and turning its headlights off before five drunk teenagers stumbled out, the sixth, the sober driver, looking a combination of annoyed and fearful.

“Guys,” he warned, “I really don’t think this is a good idea.”

His friend whirled around on him fast enough that he had to steady the drunk boy by his shoulders.

“It’s a great idea,” the drunk one said, “right, y’all? YouTube is gonna lose their McFuckin’ shit when they see this.”

A girl in the group, this one slightly less drunk, shook her head. “I kinda gotta agree with Adam,” she admitted. “Haven’t like three people died here in the past two weeks?”

The boy shook a backpack confidently. “They weren’t prepared like we are,” he replied cockily.

Althea rolled her eyes and took a step toward the kids.

“Hey!” she called out, startling them visibly, opening up her jacket as if to reveal a badge. “Police! What the hell are you kids doing out here?”

Amidst mutterings of “oh, shit” and pleas not to call their parents, the kids didn’t even put up a fight before getting back in the car and speeding off without even turning the headlights on until they were nearly out of sight.

“Nice, Tea,” Kim said sarcastically, “you probably scared them half to death.”

Rickie shrugged. “Coulda been full death, if they stayed out here tonight,” she argued, and Althea made an agreeable gesture with her thumb.

“Sometimes your girlfriend’s right,” she said, ignoring the small but petulant “thank you.” “This is why we couldn’t wait another day. Those kids could’ve been next.”

Kim rolled her eyes. “You don’t get to count yourself right on a lucky guess,” she muttered, but pulled her coat tightly around her, then Rickie’s arms even tighter around that, and didn’t argue anymore.

“Oh, fuck,” Althea cursed, “the moon--we’ve gotta move.”

Summoning the demon never took long, and this one was particularly eager.

In a whirl of smoke, an armored skeleton, grey and mostly-crumbled, clawed its way up from the bottom of the bridge, turning on Althea with yellow eyes that shone like a cat’s. Its voice was a grating screech.

“You rang?” it drawled, cocking its head to one side so violently that it left Althea’s mouth tasting bitter.

“We did,” Kim spoke up. “We have questions for you, if you can answer them.”

The demon’s face split into a macabre smile. “I have answers,” it croaked, “if you can pay for them.”

Althea rolled her eyes. “What is it you want?”

The demon scratched its chin. “Teeth?” it asked. “It’s been a long while since I’ve had some teeth. Crunchy.”

Rickie grimaced. “Nope,” she shut down, “nope nope. Gross. Try again.”

The demon pouted. “You’re no fun,” it chastised. “What if I break a finger? The same satisfying crunch without all the empty calories. Trying to watch my figure.” It clanked twice on its hollow armor before letting out a howling laugh.

“Fine,” Althea caved, rolling up her sleeve and extending her arm. “Knock yourself out.”

Kim paled. “Althea, you can’t--”

The demon interrupted, its eyes flashing bright. “The contract is sealed,” it said, and Althea barely had enough time to shove the other sleeve of her jacket into her mouth before the demon took her index finger and snapped it to one side easily. It leaned in right next to her ear and smiled once more. “But I work for tips.”

“Fuck!” she cursed, dropping to one knee cradling her finger to her stomach and cringing when her whole hand came away stained with blood. The motherfucker had stabbed her in the side. From the ground, Althea could see shining, yellow eyes all around the bridge, in the hedges, below the water, on the scaffolding. The demon hadn’t come alone, and this was not a battle they were going to win.

“It’s a setup!” Althea shouted as Kim stooped down to help her up. “Run! Get the fuck going!”

The pain was temporarily dulled by the adrenaline, but Althea was losing blood faster now that she was running to the car.

Rickie fumbled with the keys that Althea threw her, knowing she wasn’t going to be able to drive with a broken finger, and unlocked the car. She shoved the key into the ignition and tried several times to start the car, listening to the engine stall three times before cursing.

“It won’t start!” Rickie announced, and Kim groaned.

“What do you mean, ‘it won’t start?’”

“I mean, the car won’t start!” Rickie whisper-shouted. Smoke began to pour from the engine, black and ominous and probably demon-tampered.

“Then how are we supposed to get out of here?” Kim asked, and Althea opened up her phone.

“I called an Uber,” she said blearily, blood loss draining her energy.

“You--you called a fucking uber?” Rickie asked incredulously. “A fucking UBER?”

“What fucking choice do we have?” Athea bit back. “We’ve gotta…” she took a pause to breathe, “gotta walk a block for ‘em.”

Kim rushed to Althea’s side, steadying her from dizziness--adrenaline and pain were a hell of a drug.

“Fuckin’--okay. Fucking okay,” Rickie stabilized herself. “We’ve got to flee from a sea of demons to get to a goddamn Uber.”

Althea nodded, her bun bobbing over her head with the gesticulation. “Six minutes,” she added.

The eyes were still open, watching, and the demon from before had not been subdued yet. Their only cover was the trees, but those provided cover for the Eyes, too, and probably other things. Althea reached for the silver blade strapped to her thigh while Kim quietly cocked her gun and Rickie unswitched her pocket knife.

With every step, Althea could feel herself drooping. It seemed like the small forest was getting darker, but rational thought told her that probably wasn’t the case. Rickie had definitely cut something, and Kim had fired a silenced bullet or two, but Althea had yet to take down a single demon. Things brushed at her ankles, jumped up at her jacket and hung by their mouths, no doubt sucking the blood that had seeped into her clothes, but she just swatted them irritably into the dirt and did her best not to step on them.

“Tea,” Kim hissed, “stop shuffling your feet. You’re going to blow our cover.” Althea nodded, unsure whether Kim could see the motion or not, but didn’t stop walking--even when Kim apparently had, because she ran right into her back. Kim spun around to face her and ended up catching her as she collapsed, feeling panic well up inside her when she felt a gaping hole in her sister’s clothes and the wetness oozing from it. “Holy shit--why didn’t you tell someone you were bleeding?”

Althea shrugged, trying and failing to get her feet under her. “Why’d we stop?” she slurred, and Kim pointed toward the opening of the forest and the residential street behind it.

“Our ride’s gonna be here soon,” she explained, but all of a sudden, Kim’s arm jerked up and out, pulling her back into the forest.

The adrenaline was back.

“Kimmy!” Althea shouted, wincing and pressing a hand firmly to her side as she clambered into a standing position, grimacing even more deeply as her broken finger throbbed in protest at being held against the wound.

“I’ll get her,” Rickie said, holding Althea back with one hand across her chest.

“We both will,” Althea compromised sternly, running as fast as she could into the forest before Rickie even had a chance to argue with her.

The first time she stumbled and nearly fell, Rickie had already caught up--how slow was she going?--and caught her under one arm.

“Jesus,” Rickie groaned under the strain of suddenly supporting a good percentage of Althea’s body weight, “you’re--so terrible,” she continued, “the actual worst.”

Althea sort of wanted to apologize, but she figured that Rickie might actually get worried if she did, and besides, what did Rickie expect her to do, just sit on the curb and flag down the taxi while her sister was in danger?

Halfway to the bridge, Althea stumbled again, nearly taking both of them to the ground. “That demon really hauled ass back to the bridge,” she muttered irritably. She’d hoped against hope that maybe they could have cornered them at the entrance of the forest, because walking was really starting to take a toll on her.

“Yeah,” Rickie agreed. “I see her,” she said, pointing ahead.

When Althea finally could focus her vision, she saw Kimmy, standing on the outskirt of the bridge where there was barely enough footing for her to even stay balanced, clinging to the outsides of the rails to stay up.

The demon held her with one hand, easily, as if she weighed nothing to it.

“What more do you want?” Rickie asked it aggressively. “You already broke her sister’s finger and stabbed her, what more do you need before you’ll fuck off quick and easy?”

Althea felt herself drop to the ground as Rickie was pulled in toward the bridge by the little yellow-eyed things--birds, she realized, or maybe bats? Some kind of horrible skeleton-blobs with wings. She scowled as the demon held her mere inches from its face by her shirt.

“Take a guess,” it sang in the voice of a thousand voices, the echo of hell and all who inhabit it, of everything that had died too soon or lived too long.

Rickie needed only one good foothold to be able to run up the armor with one leg and swipe at the joint where the skeleton head met the spine, knocking it sideways for a moment long enough to be released. Althea took her chance and sprinted for the bridge before the demon could get the good sense to push.

“I’ve gotcha,” she promised, offering both her hands for her sister to grab. Broken finger momentarily forgotten, Kim grabbed on hard and allowed Althea to steady her as she leapt over the railing and onto the bridge ground. Rickie was still doing--something, Althea couldn’t be sure. Everything was wobbly and spinning and sounded far, far away.

“Tea?” Kim called, and Althea missed the rare “fuck!” that slipped past her teeth as she collapsed.

“I need you!” Rickie shouted, too distracted by the demon righting itself to have seen anything other than Kim getting to relative safety.

Kim cocked her gun and aimed it straight at the demon’s head. When its attention finally found her, it smiled.

“You think a bullet’s gonna--!” The sentence ended there as a musket ball fired straight through, stattering the skull of the demon. It wavered from side to side before tipping over the rail of the bridge and falling into the water below with a satisfying splash.

The yellow-eyed-monsters were nowhere to be found.

Rickie turned to her girlfriend with a relieved smile and rushed at her, gripping her arms in her hands.

“Are you hurt?” she asked, scanning her for wounds. “Did it do anything to you?”

Kim shook her head, allowing her hands to reach forward and caress both sides of Rickie’s cheeks.

“I’m fine,” she promised, “but Tea’s down.”

Rickie towered tall, staying vigilant of their surroundings while Kim crouched next to Althea and pat her face trying to rouse her.

“Do we have anything to patch her up with here, or are we about to get banned from Uber?”   
Turns out, neither.

They got a 1-Star rating for making the driver wait, but Kim’s belt and shirt staunched the bleeding long enough for the ride.

The driver raised an eyebrow as the girls dragged Althea into the back seat.

“Shit, fam,” he startled, “is she okay? Y’all need a hospital or somethin’?”

Rickie gave her most convincing smile. “She’s narcoleptic,” she fabricated. “She’ll wake up in a bit, but she was the DD.”

The driver’s face relaxed, the specificity of the excuse seemingly enough to calm his doubts. Rickie hated how good she’d gotten at lying to her own reflection in someone’s eyes.

The motel they were staying at wasn’t far; close enough, in fact, that Rickie probably wouldn’t even need to Uber to go get the car the next morning and have it towed.

Althea stirred, blinking heavily and groaning.

“Wha’appened?” she mumbled, and Kim patted her arm.

“We’ll explain later,” she promised, throwing a pointed look at the Uber driver. Althea just nodded and closed her eyes again, but Rickie kicked her leg.

“Stay awake,” she commanded. “I don’t want to carry you to the motel.”

Althea did her best, but was only able to retain a sort of in-and-out half-consciousness until they got her back to the motel room and set her in the bathtub.

Rickie disinfected a needle and stretch of fishing line with rubbing alcohol while Kim looked through the medicine bag.

“You’re in luck,” she said, overturning one open compartment of a weekly pill separator and extending two pills to her sister, “Percocet.” On a bad day, she’d have a choice between whiskey and ibuprofen. Althea took just one of the pills and swallowed it dry.

“Save the other,” she instructed. “S’just a few stitches.”

Rickie helped Althea none too gently out of her jacket and shirt, then took a breath.

“I’m gonna undo the belt,” she warned, turning to Kim. “Isopropyl ready?” Kim nodded and handed her the bottle as soon as the belt was off. Althea grit her teeth and did her best to bite back a scream so that all that came out was a thin, waxy whine.

Kim wiped the sweat from her forehead with a cold washcloth.

“Fuck, Tea,” Rickie gasped, biting the inside of her cheek, “this one’s bad.”

Althea drifted in and out of consciousness, half from pain and half from Percocet, during the ten minutes it took for Rickie to finish the stitches.

“Let’s get her to bed,” Kim murmured, stroking her sister’s hair which had long since fallen out of its bun.

“Nah,” Rickie argued, “not yet. You know she likes to sleep in the bathtub when she’s hurt.”

It was true. The cool porcelain was only a half-turn away and the toilet was there in case the pain meds made her sick.

“That’s because she doesn’t like to do what’s good for her,” Kim frowned.

“Lemme stay,” Althea whined gruffly, “m’comfy here.”

Kim rolled her eyes. “You’re not,” she argued, “but I won’t fight you. Lights on or off?”

Althea shrugged, so Kim left them on.

“Get us if you need anything,” she demanded, knowing that she’d be up every hour to check on her, anyway, but that telling her sisters that she was only a call away was a tradition from childhood any time any of them were sick or sad or lonely, and it made Althea smile.

“Will do,” she said. “G’night.”

Kim curled around Rickie in bed and staring at the light seeping under the closed-over bathroom door like a beacon.

“Think you’ll get any sleep tonight?” Rickie asked, and Kim laughed lightly.

“Probably not,” she said.

“Want me to stay up with you?”

Kim shook her head even though that was exactly what she wanted. “No,” she reassured, “you can go to sleep.”

Rickie instead turned on the television to one of the four channels offered. “I’ll stay up a bit,” she offered, managing to watch infomercials and local weather until she could just barely hear Althea snoring from the other room. Kim closed her own eyes, setting an alarm to check on her sister but hoping that maybe she could catch a few minute’s sleep between rounds. All three girls cycled between nightmares about demons and dreams of a world without.


End file.
